With a three year absence of visiting the southern regions of WA due to COVID, it was great to get back to meeting face to face again with our industries southern regional members. 

The first of 2 regional seminars this year, we hit the road to head down to Albany.

The event was held at a new venue of the Retrovision Stadium located just a couple of minutes from the Albany Leisure and Aquatic Centre.  The venue was perfect to host the 28 attendees with a few trade exhibitors (Commercial Aquatics Australia, Fluidra and International Quadratics) also making the trip down to support LIWA and its members.

The day kicked off with the City of Albany Mayor Dennis Wellington welcoming members to Albany and officially opening the Seminar.

We were pleased to have CEO of Royal Life Saving WA Peter Leaversuch come down to provide a sneak peak of the latest Bigger, Better, Safer Report due to be released later in October. Peter was able to provide invaluable information about the great southern regions as to how the region is doing statistically and the great work these facilities and the staff have done.

Tom Scott-Jones who now runs the Watch Around Program for RLSSWA, provided the attendees an opportunity to discuss the WAW program from a regional perspective, what works, what doesn’t so that the program can be reviewed and improved to ensure the programs continued success.

The attendees then had an opportunity for a site visit to the newly renovated Albany Leisure and Aquatics Centre.  With many changes that have happened over recent years there was a lot to look at.  The group was split into two with one group touring the dry side facilities such as upgraded Gym to the impressive 2 multi-functional sports halls.  Group 2 were taken on a tour of the aquatic facility and plantroom operations then both groups swapped so that they had tour of the entire facility.

Back at Retrovision Stadium the group were able to network further over lunch and speak with our Trade Exhibitors.
After lunch it was time for our special guest RJ Houston from Royal Life Saving Australia who flew over from Melbourne to attend the seminar.  RJ is the National Manager of Aquatics for RLSSA and the chair for the National Aquatics Industry Committee.
RJ provided an up-to-date overview of the aquatics industry, and insights to how regional pool mangers and aquatic facilities fit into this system and the importance of what you do for the communities.  RJ provided some information from the recent Social Value report and what social impacts has on patrons who visit our facilities.

A presentation was also done to showcase what the industry is building overseas in Canada to give us a view of new facilities from outside of our bubble here in Australia. 

We would like to thank John and Chris from the Albany Leisure and Aquatic Centre for helping us host the seminar and taking us on the facility tour. 
Thank you to Peter and RJ from RLSS, our Trade Exhibitors and our regional board member Billy Vibart in assisting us to host a successful an engaging event.

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